Wondrous Youth
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: Sara was in the tub. "Was it wrong?" She rasped through sobs, knees to her chest, trembling like the lost child he'd once misjudged her to be.


Title: Wondrous Youth

Author: ScullyAsTrinity

Rating: Strong PG-13, but doesn't warrant R.

A/N: I poured a lot of thought into this one. A lot of you may disagree with this storyline because it's the type of pre-GeekLove that some people write. I have no idea why this idea struck me, but I really tried to get this right, to keep it slightly in character, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

One more thing: There are two stories that I highly recommend people read. One is 'Finding Me' by Sunrays and Saturdays. Positively well thought out and fluffy. Also 'Faithful Light' by Miss Jazz. Undertones of GSR while staying in character and a wonderful 'out in the wilderness' storyline. Listen to me, sounds like I'm describing wine or something…

The weather had conspired against them.

But then again so had the merlot and the lighting. The walk to her apartment was slow and sluggish with the alcohol caressing their minds. It made it seem okay, then, for her to jump in a puddle and giggle about it. It made it alright for him to smile admiringly, wondrous at her youth, realizing that he was just getting older.

There was positively no reason for them to have ordered wine that night. They'd subsisted on coffee and beer, nights previous. They'd been content to talk about forensics and entomology. It was easiest to look at each other, regarding the other coolly as some sort of co-worker.

Why it had been wine and talk of secular things while holding smoky gazes neither knew. But the fact was, it had happened.

If the wine weren't concocting lust within his veins he surely wouldn't have heeded to her suggestion to go up to her apartment and dry off. In fact, if it weren't cascading through hers she would not have been bold enough to ask in the first place.

He didn't love her, but he knew he could.

Six weeks in Boston had been enough to enchant him, drawn him down a previously unknown hallway, one that lead to certain reprieve.

Their clothes were left to dry that evening, but not in the dryer; they were left on the floor where they were shed. Hair, that evening, was left to mold itself into the shape that it fell upon the pillow.

Her heart cracked a little, but not because she loved him, because she knew that it was eventual, that she would.

His approach to her was much the same as his approach to a watermelon. Or a pineapple. Or a pomegranate perhaps. Carefully, he began, just tasting, just treading the line between tangy and sweet. Soon, however, much like a ripe melon, he found himself unable to hold back from plunging in, allowing the sweetness and tang overcome him. It was wonder.

She'd groaned desperately when he moved in her, making her remember what it felt like to be whole. And for an instant she knew him completely, whether he realized it or not.

Six weeks in Boston had been enough to make her believe in something again, and it scared her beyond the point of common reason. She didn't know him, not really... and yet he was in her bed, and she was trusting him with her body. Something she hadn't trusted anyone with in a very long time.

And the one thing they both agreed on when they woke up was that, yes, it had been good. Amazing even.

They'd sat at her makeshift kitchen table and eaten fruit and eggs, nearly burnt. She couldn't cook, and had told him so, but he didn't care. There was chocolate milk and coffee and talk of class.

They rested, sated and full; they agreed that it was probably for the best that anything like the night previous be completely avoided in the future. Sara had laughed, agreeing at the time. If time could have only told...

But they'd met up again that night, after the seminar, for coffee. There was no awkwardness, and that, in itself, Gil found wholly awkward. Mere hours ago he'd been mapping her body with his tongue and now she sat before him, sipping her mocha, turtleneck covering the purple brands he'd laid down the night before. She was hiding them for his sake, he supposed, but he wasn't sure why it made him twinge so, deep inside.

She placed the muffin down on the table in front of him, he, pulling out of his crossword. His frown regarded her as he looked up. "It's burnt."

Sara had thrown herself into a chair across the break room table from him, her body bearing all of the weariness that came with a double shift. "I thought I'd told you I can't cook, I can't even toast." True, she had told him, but that was years, ages, eons ago, when they were different people.

"That was a mistake." He'd said casually, not really intending the implications of the words, but saying them nonetheless. It was a mistake, then, for if it was ever to happen again, under the right circumstances, under the circumstances he hoped it could happen under, it wouldn't be their first time.

Their second time would be a myriad of remembrances of the first time. It would be tainted and spectacularly unspectacular. It would lack the grandeur that it was intended to come with; the meaning, the feeling the implications.

But still, he couldn't live with it eating away at him. And she couldn't stand to look at him in that instant, so she left, the muffin mocking him from it's spot on the table.

It ate through him during shift. And he couldn't explain why, on his way out of the parking lot after shift, he made a left turn instead of the right turn he usually made to go back to his apartment.

She didn't answer when he knocked, so he waited a moment and knocked again. She was home. She was always home at that hour. He knew because he'd waited for her before. He'd waited, but hadn't made good on his urges and knocked on her door; this time, he did.

It was wrong, it was wrong but he tried the knob and nearly ran when it turned freely under his pressure.

And it was wrong, when he stepped into her apartment without invitation, but he did it anyway, playing on one of his hunches; he shouldn't have, because he never did, but he had to. He felt it.

All he heard was the shower and her sobbing. And because she didn't answer to his shouts, he made his way to the bathroom and stood outside the door. He called again, knowing quite well that she could hear him, but still, she didn't answer.

Sara was in the tub, clad only in her simple bra and panties, scalding water punishing her body in the way that she only wished to herself. "Was it wrong?" She rasped through sobs, knees to her chest, trembling like the lost child he'd once misjudged her to be.

Saliva caught in his throat and his tongue clicked against the front of his teeth, yet he had nothing to say. He simply stared at her, sorrow grasping his heart until he stepped forward. "Honey..."

"Was it wrong?" This time, her face turned towards him and it was like an jab to his gut. Though she was soaked through with the water and her guilt, he could still distinguish the individual rivulets of tears cascading down her red cheeks.

She was burning and she didn't care. But he didn't stop her.

All the intent in the world couldn't halt him from slipping off his shoes and stepping under the spray, fully clothed, and lifting her into his arms. She was dead weight, leaden with sobs. They shook his body as they violently wracked hers, a tsunami ten years in the making.

But they couldn't stand there any longer, the water was weighing her down, threatening to bring her down the drain, her sobs pressing on her lungs, and she was about to choke on the water. He knew this, so he turned off the water and pulled her from the humid coffin of a tub.

Grissom grabbed a large red towel from the rack and wrapped it around her, taking care not to touch her too hard, noting her sensitized skin from the shower. Still, his hands rested on her shoulders and still, she continued to cry. Racoon eyes, dissheveled, matted hair, see through bra. She stood before him, shaking, completely and utterly lost.

Dark black blotches under her eyes, curiously symmetrical washes of black, a poor watercolor, a macabre clown, black rings spreading away from her eyes like paper chromatography...

And he could think of nothing to do but kiss her. Her mouth was already open under his and his tongue slid in, stealing a sob from her, making it his own.

He wanted her to feel something gorgeous, he wanted her to feel something fierce... but the only thing he could stand to do was duel with her tongue. He was frightened to find that he was winning; she wasn't fighting back. He pulled back and looked into her eyes.

She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready and that was fine.

Her eyes were glassed over and not in a good way. Lightly, he stroked her cheek. It was still damp and she fell into his hand willingly, his palm her only real support.

"So tired." She whispered and molded her body to his. "And you didn't give me an answer."

She felt his nod rather than saw it, and pulled her to him gently and led her to her bedroom, or at least in the direction he thought it was in. Elation when he realized her instinctively knew where it was; regret when he realized he had to put her to bed... alone. He drip, drip, dripped all over her carpet, until she reached up and unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, meticulously, like she was piecing together an incredibly delicate puzzle. The soggy cloth fell to the floor and he looked at it as if it was a foreign object, as if he'd never seen it before.

Next, she slid his chinos from his body, leaving him standing before her in shorts and socks. And then she tugged him, tugged him towards the bed. But he halted her.

Before him, in the dim light of the setting sun, she stood. Soggy, she was soggy, gross and sticky in her starchy undergarments. Before she could speak or process the situation he was making quick work of getting her out of her panties and bra. But he wasn't looking at her body, he was still content to stare in her eyes, attempting to soothe her singed nerves.

In the bed, she lay, her sobs slowing until they were single hiccoughs of grief. Her head was back against his chest, the damp hair soaking through the thin cotton, tickling his skin.

"Griss..." Her voice rang out in the silence of the room, guilt, love, stabbing at his heart and he had to swallow audibly to supress the sob that nearly spilled from him.

Kissing the back of her head, smoothing the skin of her neck, he spoke, "Sleep Sara, I'm here."

And her breathing fell into a comforted rhythm, the way it had when he'd lain beside her so many years ago. It was all the answer she needed.


End file.
